If you are a technology professional, then chances are that you are aware (maybe to the point of annoyance) that everything is getting defined in software these days. We have Software-Defined Networking (SDN), Software-Defined Data Center (SDDC), Software-Defined Storage (SDS), and the list goes on and on. Software defining anything has become such a powerful trend that we now have a generally accepted name and acronym for just that: “Software-Defined Anything” or SDx for short.

Despite the widespread nature of the trend, Software-Defined Contact Center (SDCC) is nowhere to be found amongst the Software-Defined goodness that floods our social media feeds on a daily basis. Software-Defined Contact Center is so absent from the online world that if you search Google for the term you get only articles that reference Software-Defined Data Center, seemly because 3 out of the 4 words are common to both. If you search for the #SDCC hash tag on Twitter you will find yourself at the official account of the San Diego Comic Con. This raises the question, why isn’t SDCC “a thing?” This question is particularly relevant since Cisco’s Intelligent Contact Management (ICM) has been allowing us to build Software-Defined Contact Centers since the late 1990s. Let’s take a look at how ICM delivers on the Software-Defined paradigm for Contact Centers. Read More »

Voice over IP for business telephony is old news. But when business enterprises like Cisco connected to the outside world, they still used old-world technology. In the past two years Cisco IT has migrated its big connections to the outside world to Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). This move has saved us millions per year, made our contact center service better, and enabled global collaboration without breaking our budget. It has also simplified our internal voice architecture.

Best of all, it has positioned Cisco to build a B2B voice / video network to enable easier partnerships and better B2B collaboration.

Here’s Rich Gore from Cisco IT, to give a quick and simple overview of SIP, and how Cisco IT is using it to build new services, simplify architectures, and save money.

Not so long ago, OJ Winge unveiled Cisco’s mission to ensure the “Power of In-Person” experience to everyone and high-quality, lifelike video would be delivered to all users and environments in any organization.

Cisco continues to enable and extend telepresense throughout organizations worldwide for any environment. Our latest technologies – the new VX Tactical endpoint, ISDN Link and ISDN Gateway – allow telepresence more deployment flexibility in new locations regardless of environment or connection options.

The new Cisco TelePresence VX Tactical is a ruggedized mobile endpoint built for “in-person” conversations with other members of their team no matter where they are in the world. Portable and ruggedized, the VX Tactical offers the benefits of mobility through a hard case-style form factor that is ideal for use in military, emergency response, oil and gas, and construction environments where field work is often required. The VX Tactical features a high-impact plastic shell with an aluminum interior frame to provide structural strength, and is designed to be water-, sand-, chemical- and corrosive-resistant. It can be used virtually anywhere – in a Humvee, tank, fire truck, even on an oil rig – so that, anywhere you can get an Internet connection whether it be IP, Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G or satellite, you have TelePresence with you.

Speaking of flexible connections, there are many areas of the world where ISDN is the only option, or where connection to external networks such as V.35 is required. For example, small branch offices of banks located in smaller cities across the globe may only have ISDN connectivity, which previously limited customers’ choices in the telepresence endpoints they could select. This has kept many of our customers on the MXP platform – but with the new Cisco TelePresence ISDN Link, a compact appliance that provides ISDN and external network connectivity, our customers can upgrade to our latest products: Cisco TelePresence EX, MX, SX and C Series endpoints. The ISDN Link is a great companion product to the VX Tactical, which is often deployed in remote locations where ISDN is the only connection option.

While the ISDN Link is used for ISDN connectivity with one or two endpoints, the new ISDN Gateway would act as a network resource for ISDN connectivity for multiple endpoints. ISDN Gateway completes the connectivity for customers with a dispersed network. The ISDN Gateway products support all Cisco TelePresence endpoints to enable a collaborative and secure ISDN network for a HD telepresence solution no matter where the customer is located in the world.

So no matter whom you want to talk to, where they reside, whether they use IP or ISDN, you will be able to connect in seconds and experience HD video. The solutions continue to support new use cases as we continue to build out our telepresence technology that brings people together anywhere, anytime.

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